Junkyards

The Lincoln Continental with leather seats, the shiny gray Mercedes-Benz, the immaculate Lexus ES 300 and the impeccable Cadillac DeVille seem out of place in this San Fernando Valley junkyard, where wrecks of VW bugs and pickup trucks bare their smashed hoods like fangs at the pretentious newcomers. They may be luxury cars in name, but now they're just like the other clunkers surrendered for car-buying cash in the government's Car Allowance Rebate System, or CARS. It might seem like a waste.

Mater's Junkyard Jamboree combines an old-fashioned whip ride with a spinning teacup platform to deliver a truckload of thrills much wilder than you might expect from its mild appearance. The C-Ticket family ride is one of three new attractions opening June 15 in the 12-acre Cars Land at Disney California Adventure. PHOTOS: Buena Vista Street | Cars Land | Radiator Springs Racers | Mater's Junkyard Jamboree | Luigi's Flying Tires | Cars Land origins The setup for Mater's Junkyard Jamboree looks kiddie-ride trite.

In one of several new construction projects triggered by the explosive growth of the local entertainment industry, a 27-acre junkyard in Sun Valley has been leased for conversion into 16 new sound stages for film production. Sam Adlen, owner of Aadlen Brothers Auto Wrecking, signed over his Sun Valley property to a group of investors last month, said Jerry Martinez, Aadlen manager. The investors, whom Martinez would not identify, plan to finish the new studios by the end of this year, he said.

Harry Crews, a rough-hewn Southerner who drew a keen following with novels that describe a Hieronymus Bosch landscape of grotesques — characters who are tossed into rattlesnake pits, walk on their hands, croon lullabies to a skull and literally eat a car — died Wednesday in Gainesville, Fla. He was 76. The cause was neuropathy, according to his former wife, Sally Crews. The word "original" only begins to describe Crews, whose 17 novels place him squarely in the Southern gothic tradition, also known as Grit Lit. He emerged from a grisly childhood in Georgia with a darkly comic vision that made him literary kin to William Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor and Hunter S. Thompson, although he never achieved their broad recognition.

In one of several construction projects triggered by the explosive growth of the local entertainment industry, a 27-acre junkyard in Sun Valley has been leased for conversion into 16 sound stages for film production. Sam Adlen, owner of Aadlen Bros. Auto Wrecking, signed over all of his Sun Valley property to a group of investors last month, according to Jerry Martinez, Aadlen manager.

Animal control officers rescued 14 sheep from a muddy junkyard littered with broken glass and car parts. Mike Garza, 73, owner of the Barbados black belly sheep, runs a wrecking company and has owned the property for 30 years. Garza was not present when his flock was seized, and said he was devastated by the news. "I've had them for 15 years," he said. "This may not have been the prettiest place for them to live, but they were taken care of."

In August, police cracked down on a Van Nuys auto theft ring that used auto junkyards to satisfy its thirst for certain American sports cars. The thieves stripped identification numbers from wrecked Firebirds, Camaros and Fieros that investigators believe were bought at the yards, then used the numbers to register 29 stolen cars of the same models.

A controversial recycling center and junkyard accused of creating a 50,000-ton pile of potentially toxic waste in the mid-1980s can operate until 2013 without having to obtain new permits. * Adams Steel, which the city has spent more than $500,000 battling in court in recent years over a series of alleged code violations, persuaded the majority of a bitterly divided City Council this week to extend the firm's operating permit without requiring periodic reviews.

There's no doubt that Jim Gaye runs an auto wrecking yard. Pneumatic tools chatter and roar as workers strip parts from crumpled cars in the 2 1/2-acre lot in an industrial neighborhood on the outskirts of Orange County's Civic Center. But look beyond the stacks of used wheels and racks of salvaged parts in the drafty front office and you're likely to see a grizzled yardman tapping an inquiry into one of several computers lining the front counter at Gaye's Wrecks West.

For a brief moment, Cedric Denkins thought he'd died and gone to heaven. Junk heaven, that is. He awakened one morning to see strangers dumping tons of scrap metal, old cars and other discards into a vacant Los Angeles lot next to where he's lived in his battered 1963 Chevy truck for the past four years. "Holy Toledo!" whistled Denkins, 53, who ekes out a living scavenging collectibles in the old truck and selling them at swap meets.

Mater's Junkyard Jamboree promises to be the dizziest and noisiest of the new rides coming to Cars Land in 2012 at Disney California Adventure. The racket begins before you even board the spinning tractor and cart ride: A play area near the main entrance will feature an interactive junkyard of bangable hubcaps and honkable horns. > Photos: Mater's Junkyard Jamboree at Disney California Adventure Visitors enter the ride via a queue lined with a ramshackle fence made from old gasoline pumps, toppling barrels, balding tires and junk-trimmed trees.

On a pretty day from a vista point a few miles south of here, you can look over green grazing lands, almond orchards, row crops and the blue ribbons of canal water that run through California's Central Valley. This isn't a pretty day. The valley's infamous Tule fog has leached the color from the scene, leaving the hills pale and the sky gray. The water in the Delta-Mendota Canal is rust-brown ? and day after day yields ugly secrets as divers search for what they hope they won't find: the body of 4-year-old Juliani Cardenas, kidnapped from his grandmother's arms two weeks ago. A farmworker said he saw a car go into the canal 45 minutes after Juliani was taken.

The Lincoln Continental with leather seats, the shiny gray Mercedes-Benz, the immaculate Lexus ES 300 and the impeccable Cadillac DeVille seem out of place in this San Fernando Valley junkyard, where wrecks of VW bugs and pickup trucks bare their smashed hoods like fangs at the pretentious newcomers. They may be luxury cars in name, but now they're just like the other clunkers surrendered for car-buying cash in the government's Car Allowance Rebate System, or CARS. It might seem like a waste.

From afar, the ghostly warships recall a fierce phalanx ready for battle. A closer look, though, shows the rust and rot of ships unfit for duty or even dismantling, a quandary that is costing taxpayers millions of dollars and could cause environmental misery that will cost millions more. This is the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet, a collection of once-valiant troop transports, tankers and other vessels dating to World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

Mounds of titanium and steel glinted in the afternoon sun, valves and pipes protruding in all directions like half-formed metal organisms. In one corner of the warehouse was a twin of the Apollo command module engine that brought Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong back from the surface of the moon nearly 40 years ago. Nearby was the second-stage motor for a Saturn V, the most powerful rocket ever used in the U.S. space program.

Erk Russell, 80, who led the University of Georgia's "Junkyard Dog" defense under football coach Vince Dooley and then built a small-college powerhouse of his own at Georgia Southern, died Friday after a single-vehicle accident in Statesboro, Ga. Russell was pronounced dead on arrival at East Georgia Regional Medical Center. A hospital official said his death was not from injuries related to the wreck, adding that the examination was not complete.

There's no doubt that Jim Gaye runs an auto-wrecking yard. Pneumatic tools chatter and roar as workers strip parts from crumpled cars on the 2 1/2-acre lot in an industrial neighborhood near Orange County's civic center. But look beyond the stacks of used wheels and racks of salvaged parts in the drafty front office and you're likely to see a grizzled yardman tapping an inquiry into one of several computers lining the front counter at Gaye's Wrecks West.

It's a grim place, this auto junkyard in Anaheim. Hundreds of scarred wrecks and lifeless hulks arrive every week -- 50 to 60 a day, hastily dumped by an endless parade of tow-truck drivers. But for enterprising do-it-yourselfers looking for hard-to-find or discontinued auto parts, the 7-acre yard is the answer to many a prayer. Where else can you get a fender, front bumper, muffler, headlight switch, turn-signal lens and two door panels for $151.50, as one customer did recently?

With Halloween theatrics, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared at an Ontario junkyard Monday with a staffer dressed as "Count Cartaxula," who threatened to raise the state vehicle license fee from the dead if voters didn't approve Proposition 76 in next week's special election. The governor rallied 50 to 70 supporters and costumed children to back his proposal to impose state spending limits.

Ronny Turiaf understands that being drafted in the second round offers no guarantees in the NBA. The Lakers took the gregarious power forward as the 37th overall selection, but all it means now is that they have an interest in him. But then, there were no guarantees either when Turiaf left his family on the tiny Caribbean island of Martinique as a teenager to embark on a basketball odyssey that carried him to Paris and Spokane, Wash.